


The Princess Solution

by LittleRaven



Category: Ever After High
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 12:19:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8890543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleRaven/pseuds/LittleRaven
Summary: Apple must always have a story.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gen_xer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gen_xer/gifts).



Funny how a destiny she had accepted due to tradition seemed so foreign when discovered through action. Apple doesn’t know how to treat this. 

She must thank Darling, of course. Anybody who saved her should be appreciated, above all if she was already such a good friend. Yet after that initial moment, she had been avoiding the girl. 

It wasn’t as if she couldn’t deal with change. Well, it was, considering. She’d been humbled there, once. No need to go there again, even if she had been able to apologize in the end. 

But she knows Darling deserves better, and now she’s feeling sick again. Apple is tired of feeling guilty; she’s not sure how much more she is tired of being confused. She has no plan in mind. 

She lets herself get swept up in her family, in her mother’s worry and regret at having waded into the spelltacular mess of their school life. This is an excuse. A chance to forget. It’d be foolish not to take it. She wants to take care of herself for once--well, not for once. But this time required no meddling with others. Only self-indulgence.

Apple knows she can, and no one would blame her, after her apparent death. 

The thought made going home to rest a little more onerous. 

Had she hit her destiny too soon? She’d thought she had all the time in the world, which would be hers to lead and set an example for. Did she have another one in the wings? She was to make a mistake, be used and tricked by an Evil Queen, and woken by a Charming. Did it matter which Queen, which Charming? If this had been her story, Apple couldn’t see how it would happen again. And that had never bothered her before. Even Raven’s stubbornness couldn’t erase her bone deep certainty—surely the girl would change her mind, change herself. 

No matter what either of them felt about it. No point in letting herself be sad about what was never going to last; the point of becoming friends with Raven was in making sure she’d lose her. And so, better not to think about it. Better not to think at all, except for hows. Tactics. Mechanical planning and desperate wishing, despite all that told her she shouldn’t even have to make the effort. That was the whole point of destiny, of knowing something was right and inevitable. But Apple had always been a good student. A good girl, working for the best fairytale variant ever. The faithful adaptation. She thought she owed destiny—and herself—a helping hand. 

If it backfired on her face and gave her a twist, she should, by her own philosophy, accept it. Accept that she had misread, that she had not understood, and perhaps still did not understand. Apple should be happy: everything had worked out just like Snow White. A naive girl who meant well, a trick, a curse, the mourning, the awakening via a sudden, unexpected kiss. She had been forgiven, despite having acted with the self-guided motive more suited to a villain than a princess. Apple had been served everything she’d wanted, if not how she’d wanted it, and now what? Did she even have a story left to tell? Her stomach churns. What was it that she hadn’t wanted? For it to be over, for her to have come about it by betraying her friends, or the kiss? She knows some of this might not be happening, if Daring had woken her up. If at least that part of her identity, what she’d been relying on, had been the way she’d envisioned it. With that old certainty, even Daring’s flirtations had never bothered her. Maybe there was another reason for that. Her stomach does a full flip. 

Apple wants things to make sense again. Just once, in the chaos after Raven tipped over the dominoes back on Legacy Day. She wants to wake up and be right. She’s going to be a full-on princess, taking her distress to maximum levels, sleep for real. Save thinking—save Darling—for later. 

Apple can’t sleep. She closes her eyes and sees nothing. She hears herself speaking, as if through water, stopping because the water is too much and she cannot move or think again. She opens her eyes, heart and stomach heaving. Her pillow is soft. She buries her face in it, softness recalling softness, the lips barely felt. She does not scold herself for the comparison. 

In the morning, she is not rested. Her hair fans out in glorious gold around her. She knows this. She touches it, scalp to root to end, imagines it metallic, platinum. Time slows as surely as if Darling were with her. The thought of Darling, here in this warmth under her blankets before starting the day, settles in for a good while before she lets herself push it away. 

Instead, Apple makes herself dwell on the face she’ll have to present today. She is repentant and chastised. She is still the princess everyone had thought she was. She throws up. The bile washes the red lipstick off her mouth, tears making her eye makeup a glittering mess. This has never happened before. 

She washes her face, reapplies her makeup, puts her sleepwear back on and returns to bed. Half-awake, she strokes her hair again. It is almost a memory of what Darling’s hair is like. She’s never touched it, but surely it couldn’t be that different. If nothing else, they had the best haircare, for the same reason—Apple refuses to go back to that line of thinking. She returns to the memory of softness on her mouth, is not satisfied with the level of detail until she rests the pad of a finger on her lips. 

This time, she does not stop herself. 

 

Later, Apple enters the school to a veritable flood of sympathy. Nothing is held against her; she doesn’t know whether to be relieved, so she doesn’t think about it. She’s good at not thinking the inconvenient, she now knows. 

She knows, too, that if there’s one thing she’s good at, it’s commitment to what she sets out to accomplish. A future story, however unexpected, cannot be abandoned. She will speak to Darling. For starters.


End file.
